Perfect Regret (Bad Rep #2)(51)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

He didn’t acknowledge me, however. He didn’t bother to look my way once. He glanced down at Gracie’s beer and leaned forward to whisper something softly in her ear. She looked up at him, her eyes seeming to plead with him. They spoke quietly, only to each other, and I wished like crazy that I could hear what they were saying.

“You want to go play a game of darts?” Damien asked, pulling me out of my masochistic voyeurism. I tore my eyes away from the pair across the table and looked over at him, giving him, or at least what I hoped to be, my sincerest smile.

“Sure, that sounds good,” I said overly loud. Okay, so I was hoping to get Garrett’s attention. Sure it was childish and pathetic. But I hoped he would remember it was just a week ago that he had shown an entire bar how much he wanted me.

The problem was I couldn’t decide if this need was about my feelings for him, or once again about a misplaced sense of pride. Because Garrett had wanted me. And now he seemed to want nothing to do with me. And nothing hurt an ego more than being cast aside for one of your friends.

I scraped my chair back, making a big production of leaving the table.

Look at me, damn it!

And then he did. Garrett looked away from Gracie and finally met my eyes. He glanced from me to Damien and something unidentifiable flickered in their depths. And then whatever I thought I saw there closed off and then there was nothing.

He turned back to Gracie and spoke quietly to her again, picking up her half empty beer and setting it aside. He held out his hand and she nodded, placing her smaller palm into his much larger one.

Gracie looked up at me and there was no self-satisfaction on her face at having Garrett there beside her. In fact she seemed upset. I wish I understood what was going on between them. Were they dating? Or were they just friends as Gracie claimed. And why oh why didn’t I have the guts to come out and ask like I normally would have?

“Garrett’s going to give me a ride home. I’ll see you on Wednesday,” Gracie said and I couldn’t read the tone in her voice.

“Are you sure you don’t want to hang out longer?” I asked, glancing at Garrett who seemed to be looking at everyone but me.

“Garrett, you don’t feel like staying?” I asked him, taking the leap to address him directly.

“No, I think Gracie and I are going to head out,” he said giving me a hard look. “Besides, you seem to be in good hands,” he stated matter a factly before turning around and walking out the door.

Gracie looked at me and cocked her eyebrow, but only said a quick “goodbye” before following Garrett out of the bar.

I pushed my chair into the table hard enough for it to fall on the floor.

“What is going on between you two?” Damien asked.

“Me and Gracie?” I asked, purposefully obtuse. Damien frowned.

“No, you and that Garrett guy,” he clarified and I could only shake my head.

“We were a huge mistake,” I said sadly, feeling the truth of the words deep in my bones.

Damien’s jaw set as he picked up on what exactly I was telling him. “So you guys really did sleep together.” He pushed his hair off his forehead and grimaced. “I was really hoping that stuff you were yelling at each other last week was more about being angry than based on something that actually happened.”

I sighed and scrubbed my face with my hands before dropping them back to my side. “What do you want me to say, Damien? You broke up with me. I was upset. I thought you and me were forever and then suddenly we weren’t. I was in a really messed up place,” I shot out and Damien flinched.

“And Garrett was there. He and I hooked up and I thought for a stupid second it might mean something. But that was before I remembered who he was and who I’m supposed to be.”

I hated how incredibly egotistical those words sounded but it felt like honesty. Garrett and I weren’t meant to be. It didn’t matter that we had existed in a moment in time where we made perfect sense.

Each time we had been together had been abnormal circumstances. First when I was so drunk, sleeping with him hadn’t felt like a lapse in judgment. And the second time when I was so out of my mind with misery that it seemed he was the only one to hold me together.

If I had learned anything it was that I didn’t trust my heart to lead me down the right path. My emotions were too conflicted and messy where Garrett Bellows was concerned and I knew that following them would be a disaster.

I wasn’t a person to allow my head to overrule my heart. Even now, in the early stages of my grieving, I clung to my reason like a lifeline. Garrett and I were too different. Even though he had shown me a side of himself that revealed a man who at one time had wanted more for his life, it didn’t change the fact of where he was now.

And whom he was currently with.

And that who was my good friend.

“And who are you, Riley?” Damien asked with a hopeful expression on his face. He took my hand in his, cautiously at first but when I didn’t pull immediately away, he squeezed and moved closer.

I looked into the brown eyes that at one time had signified everything I wanted in my life. Damien was my ideal match in everyway. We had the same goals, the same ambitions. Damien and I were driven in similar ways, propelled by a passionate need to succeed and thrive.

And if those likenesses felt a little empty now, I was determined to overlook that and forget about the boy with the long blond hair who made me question everything I thought I had wanted in my life.

Because how could a guy like Garrett give me my happily ever after when we spent most our time cataloging the million and one ways we didn’t work? We couldn’t. End of story.

“I’m Riley Walker and I have an amazing future ahead of me. I know exactly what I want out of life and I will make my dad proud of me,” I said with desperation. I needed those words to be true. Otherwise I didn’t know what I would do.

Damien, emboldened by my seeming acceptance of his touch, put his arm around me. “And you will, Riley. If anyone can be something great, it’s you,” he said emphatically. His words, whether they were genuine or not, were exactly what I needed to hear.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I leaned in and kissed his mouth. Damien froze, as though worried that should he react in any way, I would bolt.

“Kiss me,” I whispered against his mouth, forcing down the sudden self-loathing that tasted like bile in the back of my throat.

What was I doing? I thought furiously to myself as Damien wrapped his arms around me, his fingers curling into the back of my hair the way he had done a thousand times before.